


yesterday

by fuhllmetal



Series: get back [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: "heavy petting", Canon Divergence, First Time, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Kerberos Mission, Love Confession, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pre-Canon and Canon Concurrent, a case of the magic space dust, not giving away any more than that ;)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-10 02:53:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7827547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuhllmetal/pseuds/fuhllmetal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away</i>
  <br/>
  <i>now it looks as though they're here to stay</i>
  <br/>
  <i>oh, i believe in yesterday</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	yesterday

**Author's Note:**

> this is what i've been working on instead of updating my other fics. the Big One. i don't have a whole lot to say beforehand as its something i set up so the best experience is just Experienced, so enjoy!  
> thanks helenor for proofreading this before i put it up for the internet to see and also for listening to me scream about this for multiple days in a row

Keith wiped the sweat off his brow, breathing heavily as he finished his training set with the Gladiator. The robot sunk into the floor after deactivating, and Keith himself collapsed against the wall that he was pushed into in the final seconds of the fight. His bayard, having clattered to the floor a few moments ago, dissolved into its normal shape in a dim burst of light.

Shiro approached Keith from the other side of the room, a slight smile on his face and a towel around his neck to catch his sweat. He stopped a few feet away, a placed hand on his hip. He regarded Keith with searching eyes; Keith blamed physical exertion for the prominent flush on his face.

 

“Workin’ hard, I see,” Shiro commented, gesturing to the heavy sweat stains in Keith’s navy blue shirt, the darker coloring spreading slowly from his armpits and back to the front and sides of his shirt. “You did well today.”

Keith grunted in response. He wasn’t sure how else to reply to compliments in general, much less from Shiro, but his lazy affirmation seemed to be enough for the other man.

“After you clean up, you have anything else planned?” Shiro asked.

“No,” Keith replied, regaining enough breath to speak. Shiro’s entire facial expression brightened.

“Then what do you say to a little star chart plotting with me down in the observatory? Now that we’re in a completely different sector, I thought it might be a good idea to do a little surveillance, and I know you like stars, so,” he said, scratching the back of his neck as he spoke.

“Sounds good. I’ll uh, meet you there in about…fifteen minutes?” Keith cringed at how he trailed off towards the end of his sentence, but Shiro didn’t seem to notice. He smiled, shot Keith a thumbs up, and started making for the showers. Keith watched him stretch as he walked out, his powerful back muscles gliding and rippling against his skin, and this time he couldn’t blame the blush returning to his face on coming down from his training session.

 

Keith entered the locker room a few minutes after Shiro initially went in and headed for the shower in the farthest corner of the room. He started lathering up as fast as he could, completely drenching himself in soap in record time, and then washed it all off as fast as it went on. His hair was a similar story, ridding it of its grease so vigorously that he would have scalped himself if he pulled any harder.

By the time he shut the water off, the locker room was silent. He was the last one left. Shiro had finished ages ago, which meant that Keith had to hurry up if he were to be on time. He checked the clock with his last bit of optimism, but it crumbled; he was already late.

For the first time, Keith cursed his own fashion sense - tight pants were pretty impossible to get on quickly - and was running down the hall full tilt ten minutes behind schedule. He slowed down when he passed Allura after she made a face at him, but after a little more running, he made it to the observatory, panting and sweaty all over again. So much for the shower.

 

The doors slid open and revealed Shiro on the other side of the room, looking up at a semi-circle of light blue lights surrounding the central panel. He flicked his wrist amid the points of light, rotating the circle and passing old stars to get to new ones. A large cloud of faint cyan came up on the hologram as Keith entered the room and walked up behind Shiro.

“Sorry I’m late,” Keith breathed, resting his hands on his knees. Shiro raised an eyebrow and suppressed a laugh, but he didn’t comment.

“Just in time for whatever the hell I just found,” Shiro said, gesturing to the cyan cloud right above his head. Keith stood up a little taller to get a better look. “Want me to hold you up?” Shiro chuckled, putting a hand on Keith’s waist. Keith glared at him, and Shiro backed off.

Keith was just glad he seemed to not notice the deep flush going from his cheeks to his ears, all the way down to his neck.

“So what is it?” Keith asked.

“Glad you asked,” Shiro replied, and he pointed at a spot just outside of the giant cyan cloud. “See that white speck? That’s us. We’re right about to enter this gigantic cloud of space dust, except the computer can’t figure out what it’s composed of, even with the scanners on max. Pidge is still working on it, but it doesn’t look like even they’re going to be able to crack this case in time, unless we stop in the middle of it, of course. Only problem with that is we still don’t know what’s inside of it because of the scanner problem, which just brings us around full circle.”

“So, what does that mean?” Keith asked again.

“Well, it means we either just pass through it for now, or we have someone go out and scout it with a smaller but more powerful scanner,” Shiro said. He put his hands on his hips and looked over at Keith.

“You want me to go out and scout. Is that what you’re saying?” Keith crossed his arms and squinted up at the cloud.

“Well, I was considering that option, and I wanted a second opinion,” Shiro said. “You’d be the best man for the job, since you’re the most agile with your lion, but at the same time, it’s incredibly dangerous and likely not even worth it. The ‘safest’ course of action is to come to a stop outside of the cloud and be a sitting duck for a while until Pidge comes up with some improved scanners.”

“Sitting duck, huh?” Keith said to himself quietly.

 

“Of course, we could always just turn around and go back where we came from, or we could go full steam ahead. I already talked to Allura about this, and she’s of the same opinion that I should ask you first, since you would be the one to go in.” Shiro leaned against the console. “So, what do you think?”

Keith gathered together the skills Shiro ingrained in him during their tactical training sessions.

“Well, being a sitting duck is out of the question, if you ask me. The Galra were tailing us pretty closely a couple days ago, too, so turning around wouldn’t be smart either,” Keith said, putting a hand on his chin as he thought out loud. “As far as throwing the whole Castle into the cloud is concerned, that’s easily the most reckless idea, and it doesn’t have much of a payoff, either. However, putting me in there with technology we could have a lot sooner is a far better idea, even if it is putting me in, admittedly, some danger.”

“That’s right. You would be in danger, and even though it’s your decision, I still think you should consider that,” Shiro cut in. Keith was silent for a few moments more, but the determination pooled in his eyes and hardened not long after.

 

“Hook me up. I’m going in.”

—

Shiro kept asking Keith for confirmation on his decision, especially after what he considered a very rash decision on Keith’s part, but Pidge was all too eager to provide what they had been working on up to this point. It wasn’t enough to boost the Castle’s sensors yet, but it would be just about perfect for the Red Lion, with a few tweaks here and there of course.

Pidge got Red outfitted in less than an hour. They were already used to modifying the lions, and all five of them were used to their touch by now, even prickly Red. Keith had discussed the flight details with Shiro one more time and was suiting up now, but even though he did agree to it, Shiro still had that obnoxious crease between his eyebrows and the locked jaw that made Keith’s stomach turn.

Keith placed his helmet on, securing it, and tucked his remaining hair into the collar of his suit. Shiro was standing a few feet away against the Black Lion, still frowning, but he willed his expression to lighten when he made eye contact with Keith. Keith returned the uncomfortable smile with a firm thumbs up, and he climbed into Red.

 

Red was humming with anticipation before Keith even set foot inside of them, but when Keith made contact with the control chair, Red was outright purring. Keith couldn’t help but crack a smile at that.

Shiro must have put his helmet on, because his voice was in Keith’s ear all of a sudden, repeating what he’d said twenty minutes earlier about being safe and not being reckless, and that the second Keith saw anything moving that wasn’t a rock, he was to book it the hell out of there immediately, and that was a direct order.

“Yes, sir,” Keith droned, even giving a half hearted salute. Shiro couldn’t see it, of course, but it felt like the right thing to do.

“Seriously, Keith. Be careful. I’ll be in the hangar suited up if you need me, so just holler.”

“Holler?” Keith repeated, unable to hide his snort. He could feel Shiro’s eye roll through the comms, but he could also hear his smile in his voice when he dismissed Keith’s comment and told him to ‘ _just get a move on already_.’

 

Keith gripped the controls, flexing his fingers over them just for good measure, and pulled the sticks back. He shot off out of the hangar and into space, the dust cloud looming huge out in front of him. Somehow it seemed even bigger in person, even if the simulation that he and Shiro poured over the entire afternoon beforehand took up just as much of his vision.

Keith began approaching it rather fast, but as he started entering the cloud, he slowed down exponentially so he didn’t disturb any potential beings or objects lying within. When he was finally fully submerged in the shimmering purple haze, he slowed to a dead stop and turned up Pidge’s new sensors to maximum.

 

The dust glimmered in his lion’s headlights, the cloud spinning and turning from the disruption his lion’s presence caused. The particles shone in all colors of the rainbow, but the predominate color was a light, lavender purple that made Keith feel sleepy just looking at it. He shook his head and slapped his cheeks, willing himself not to fall prey to its sensory temptations, and he focused his mind back on the task at hand.

The sensors were already bringing in information, data flying past Keith’s eyes at sonic speed on the dash in front of his eyes. He looked away from it, clearly unable to actually decipher any of it yet, and readied the sample pod for extraction.

Keith double checked the field again for disturbances, found nothing more than swirling dust, and decided the coast was clear. He readied the sample tank for receiving the dust and told his lion to throw up its shields and open its side door.

 

Since the shields were up, they protected him from being straight up sucked out into space, Keith didn’t have to use up his measly oxygen tanks, and they locked in plenty of dust for him to collect at his leisure. He didn’t have much leisure, of course, but it was something.

Keith unscrewed the top to the futuristic-looking jar and collected as much dust as would fit inside of the container without more falling out. He screwed the top back on, checked to make sure it was secure, and used his jetpack propulsion to navigate back into Red.

Red was a little annoyed that the mission wasn’t as exciting as they were hoping. Keith was also a little disappointed that he didn’t get to actually fly during this little outing, but at the same time, actually having to fly meant danger, and danger meant an unhappy Shiro when he got back. He’d take a grumpy Red over a more than likely beyond grumpy Shiro in this case.

 

As he was flying back to the Castle, Keith couldn’t help but notice that he was feeling a little drowsy. It was starting to get pretty late, and this mission was the very definition of impromptu, so normally he’d be getting ready for bed about this time. He’d managed to stave off the yawning until now - mostly because Shiro would have forced him to delay the mission if he saw any sign of tiredness, which was bad considering their tight schedule - but it was returning with reinforcements.

Stifling a third yawn, Keith landed in the hangar. He left Red with the jar underneath his left arm, and Shiro was already outside of his own lion, a hopeful look on his face. When his eyes settled on the container, his face lit up, and that was enough to make the trip worth it for Keith.

 

“Well, I guess you were right. No harm done.” Shiro held up the container to the light, watching the purple particles swirl around and around. “Wow, can’t imagine what the whole cloud looked like up close. Must have been pretty amazing, huh?”

Keith shrugged, his eyelids drooping slightly, and it took all of his remaining energy to not fall over. Through the haze, he had the capacity to be vaguely worried, but Shiro’s reassuring hand at his back brought him back to reality for long enough to make eye contact.

“Geez, you look beat. You’ve had a long day; go ahead to sleep and we’ll worry about this stuff tomorrow morning.”

 

Keith didn’t even think to argue, and he immediately tread down the hallway in the direction of his room. The journey felt like a hazy blur, tinged purple at the edges, and before he knew it he was collapsing face first onto his pillow, still fully suited up.

He passed out in three seconds flat, and his sleep was dreamless.

—

Keith came back to consciousness slowly, awareness bubbling up from the sleepy depths. He rolled over in his bed, and he was shocked into full awareness by the amount of light filtering past his eyelids. His room was pretty dark most of the time, and he was pretty sure he would have shut his lights off before he went to sleep.

Furrowing his eyebrows, Keith realized that this would bother him until he finally sat up and shook of sleep completely, so he did just that. He stretched as he propped himself up and opened his eyes slowly.

He nearly fell of the bed at what he saw. It was unmistakable; this was his old dorm back at the Garrison.

 

Immediately Keith pinched himself, and he yelped when the pain shot up his arm, just as he feared. Could the Castle’s rooms change shape and Allura just never told him about it? The room itself was a lot bigger than his back at the Castle’s, and the light filtering in through the unblinded window was way too real to be simulated.

Keith got out of bed, his legs giving out on him and dropping him unceremoniously to the floor. As he picked himself up, he noticed that he was wearing his old ratty tank top and boxers he slept in from back on the Earth, which just sent another spike of anxiety through his stomach. He finally regained his balance and stalked over to the calendar for the date. April 2nd, 2063 - three days before the Kerberos mission.

His heart rate was through the roof, and Keith released the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. The air wheezed out of him all at once, his lungs completely empty, and he had to remind himself to slowly take it back in. His brain was teetering on the edge of simply shutting down instead of trying to process all of the possible causes for his situation.

 

Was everything he thought he experienced past this moment just a really long, complex dream that he just woke up from? Had he been captured by the Galra or some other malevolent force and was now being kept in containment fashioned after his memories? Most outlandish, had he been thrown back in time? Was it just his mind, or did he have a double running around somewhere? He was putting the cart before the horse here, though, because he was struggling to remember what he was doing the day before, assuming that hadn’t been a dream.

Keith was getting dull images of the training deck, and then Shiro approaching him all sweaty and unfairly attractive, and then Shiro being his usual restrained, Team Leader persona before leaving. Then the observatory, and a mission, and a gigantic, purple, swirling cloud approached Keith, and beyond that his memories were violet-tinged and dull. He fished out a faint memory of him…going out into the dust cloud without his helmet sealed properly? What the hell was he thinking?

 

Correlation was not causation, but Keith was getting the feeling he knew where his problem stemmed from - the purple space dust. Since he also remembered passing out after getting back into the Castle, capture was far less likely the cause now, which only left the dream theory and the time travel theory.

If it had been a dream, that was a ridiculously vivid dream, and Keith had never had an eidetic memory or kept a dream journal, so it would be highly unusual for him to have a completely lucid dream of such a length. It also doesn’t explain why the purple space dust affected him so strongly within the dream, and how immediately after falling into a conveniently dreamless sleep, he woke up where he was now.

That only left the time travel theory, caused by whatever the hell was in that space dust. Keith also suspected that the science behind it was in the same vein as the Lions, otherwise known as ‘basically magic.’ He was going to leave the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of the situation in the ‘to figure out later’ bin.

 

Just to confirm that this was indeed real, Keith walked into the bathroom and glanced into the mirror, and he sighed when he was met with his reflection. His hair was shorter and his cheeks were fuller, but he also lacked the muscle he’d developed on the Castle. He still recognized the face looking back at him, but it still felt strange to look back at someone he hadn’t seen in nearly two years.

In that moment, seeing a crumpled Garrison uniform on the bathroom floor and his own younger face staring back at him, the calendar announcing the year 2063 proudly and his old roommate’s shitty posters still up on the wall, the realization fully set in for Keith that he would really have to play out the past once more.

And that meant he had to go to class. Keith stepped out of the bathroom to look at the clock - it was 7:34, about ten minutes before he would usually wake up. His roommate was an early riser, thankfully, so he was already out of the room and doing whatever he did this early in the morning. Keith shut off his alarm and put down a mental note to turn it back on before he went to sleep.

 

Keith’s first class was at nine if he remembered correctly, and breakfast was generally around eight. He racked his brain for his class schedule, but all that came up was his first class - Astrophysics I. That was right. He hated that class because he had it so early in the morning and was terrible at it, so terrible that he regularly went to Shiro for help.

Shiro. This was pre-Kerberos; he was still around. Keith’s heart stuttered in his chest at the mere thought, and he had to breathe deeply again to get his mind back on track. He was fine - he’d be fine.

 

So, Keith had to formulate a plan. For now he would just proceed as normal, going to class and acting as if he hadn’t seen outer space and didn’t know that the Kerberos mission would end up being a complete failure for reasons outside of human capability to stop.

A devious idea planted itself inside his head. What if…he tried to stop the Kerberos mission? Or at least stop Shiro from going?

He was getting ahead of himself. Keith shook off the idea for now and placed it on the back burner, deciding to come back to it later when he had a better handle on the situation.

 

Keith got dressed in the uniform on the bathroom floor, assuming it was his, brushed his teeth, and straightened his hair out in the mirror. Deciding he was as ready as he would ever be, he opened the door and began walking down the corridor to the mess hall. As he walked, the entire layout of the Garrison came back to him like muscle memory, and he found himself in the mess a few minutes earlier than he usually would be there.

Keith got in line for breakfast and also found the convenient memory of the Garrison’s terrible cafeteria coming back, too. He frowned at the greasy eggs and burnt toast on his plate. Just as he was leaving the line, he felt a tap on his shoulder and looked up.

 

“Morning Keith,” said the tap’s source. Keith hardly recognized him at first without the long, pink scar and white forelock, but it was certainly Takashi Shirogane that was standing next to him with a matching tray of sad breakfast items.

“M-Morning Shiro,” Keith stuttered, mentally kicking himself for how timid and surprised he sounded. Nostalgia was rushing through his body too fast for his brain to catch up.

“You, uh…want to sit down?” Shiro asked, laughing nervously. Keith turned around and noticed the backup in the line they were causing.

“Oh, yeah. Of course,” he replied, and he all but ran over to the table the two of them used to sit at every day. Rather did sit at every day, since he was in the past now. Or present, whatever.

 

“You alright? You seem kind of distracted this morning,” Shiro said after he sat down.

“I’m fine. Had a weird dream was all.” Keith put a piece of wiggly bacon in his mouth and chewed through it slowly. Even if this selection was pretty vile, actual food was a welcome sensation on his goo-acclimated palate.

“Oh really? What happened?” Shiro leaned in, a wry grin on his face. Keith stopped chewing abruptly. Either he could cut this thing from whole cloth, or he could only half-lie and not run the risk of Shiro getting unnecessarily suspicious of him.

“Can’t really remember that well. You were there, though. We were fighting these strange purple guys in these big, mechanical animal things, and we would go around the universe for the sake of justice, or something cheesy like that,” Keith recited, unable to stop the knowing smirk directed at himself from creeping onto his face mid-explanation. It felt good to be self-aware.

 

“Definitely sounds weird enough to be distracting, I’ll give you that. I’m kind of honored I showed up, to be honest,” Shiro laughed. “Guess those sparring sessions are starting to get to your head, huh?”

“Must be.” The nostalgia washed over Keith again at Shiro’s deep, rumbling laugh. He’d heard it recently, but not with the same genuine enjoyment of life that it had back at the Garrison. His chest hurt thinking about it.

“Too bad I can’t bring you along with me to Kerberos. Can’t have me getting rusty while you’re planet-side, training constantly. Then you might actually beat me!” Shiro laughed again, but this time it was considerably less mirthful. Keith’s face fell. Right. The implications there stung much worse than any measly ass kicking Keith could give out.

 

“Look, about that-“ Keith started, ready to do something very stupid, but he was cut off before he could get going by some of Shiro’s officer friends coming over to clap him on the back. They started going on about Kerberos, of course, and Shiro sent Keith an apologetic glance as he gave into the growing horde around the table.

“Meet you later in the library?” Shiro called as he stood up from the table, picking up his empty tray. Keith nodded wordlessly, and Shiro and the pack of people were gone.

Being back in the Garrison brought with it myriad feelings, but there were a couple sticking out the farthest at the moment. Shiro always seemed to breeze on past Keith, even if he wanted to stay. Keith gripped the handle of his fork tightly, but then he gently set it down on the tray and took it to the return station. He left the cafeteria and headed back to his dorm.

 _Patience yields focus._ He just needed to be patient with the situation.

 

When Keith got back to his dorm, he looked at the clock. 8:15. He had about 45 minutes left until class began, 40 minutes if he counted the walk, so now he had to fill time.

First of all, Keith checked to make sure his homework was done, something he never thought he’d ever be doing again. It was, in fact, completed, which was good, because he forgot how to do most of the work in the first place. Having his ‘future brain’ had seemingly more cons than pros in this situation, which brought him to a mental crossroads he’d been trying to avoid until now.

For what reason was his consciousness brought back to this time in particular? If that was what happened, anyway, which it was safe to assume it was with the evidence Keith had to look at.

 

The most significant date in the near future was obviously the launch of the Kerberos mission on April 5th, 2063. He was placed three days before that: a very short time, but enough to make a significant impact on the future if he played his cards right. But was that the reason he was here? To change the future?

That was the only reason Keith could imagine he was here for. There must have been some kind of entity or compound in that dust that held the capability to read his subconscious mind and grant him some sort of ‘wish’ he didn’t know he possessed.

If it sounded just as ridiculous spoken as it did in his head, Keith would give up the Garrison right this second to go make a killing as a stand-up comedian. Even so, it was the best guess he had, ruling out any kind of arbitrary game of chance the universe was playing with him - which was still entirely possible - but that left him even more unsettled than the other option.

 

For now, he was going to work off the assumption that there was intent for him being here, and that intent was to change something. Okay. Change _what?_

Three days wasn’t a whole lot of time, so if whatever dumped him here wanted him to completely call off the Kerberos mission or something, it could have easily dropped him off a lot earlier when the mission was still in its planning stages. But maybe instead of calling off the mission altogether, Keith was meant to change its crew.

Keith groaned into his hands. Shiro knew Keith, and Keith knew Shiro, so if there was one thing that Keith knew about him, it was that Shiro already knew that Keith didn’t want him to go and was ready for that fact, so no amount of lip service was going to do anyone any good. Didn’t mean Keith wouldn’t try given the right conditions, of course, but he couldn’t deny facts.

There was yet another possibility for his being here that Keith shoved to the very back of his mind where he hoped it would die from neglect. It was completely ridiculous and impossible and impulsive and never going to work out, so he wasn’t going to even acknowledge its existence. Nope. Not happening.

 

Peeking out from behind his hands, Keith noticed the time. He’d spent the better part of his allotted 40 minutes of brooding time doing just that, so if he didn’t want to miss class, he was going to have to get a move on.

Just thinking about going to class was giving him vertigo.

—

Astrophysics was a slow crawl to the finish line, but when Keith finally made it through, it felt like he really _had_ run a mental marathon. Now aware of Lance’s existence, Keith felt his eyes on the back of his head the entire class, trying to burn holes in his skull. Keith did his best not to acknowledge him, but as he was leaving the room, Lance’s eyes caught his. The absolute hatred in them burned strongly enough to make Keith genuinely uncomfortable, especially after the bond they’d built up over almost a year of Voltron. That hadn’t happened yet, though; Lance still genuinely hated him with the fire of one thousand suns, give or take a few hundred.

Keith almost felt bad for ignoring him back in the day. Almost.

 

So now that he was free for the next couple hours, Keith supposed he should meet up with Shiro in the library. Shiro never specified a time, but since they usually met up in the library after Keith had Astrophysics anyway, it was a safe assumption.

The walk to the library was short, and when Keith got there, the library was starting to fill considerably. His feet carried him over to what he dimly remembered as him and Shiro’s usual table on the second level, and when arrived, Shiro was already there. His head was buried in a paperback. Keith leaned forward a little to see the cover, and he pursed his lips when he realized it was just some cheesy romance novel. He thought Shiro had better taste than that.

Shiro looked up from his shlock and flushed, slamming the book down on the table so Keith couldn’t see the cover. This whole situation felt vaguely familiar.

 

“H-Hey Keith,” Shiro said, voice wavering sheepishly. “You’re a little earlier than I was expecting.” Keith decided not to acknowledge the book to spare Shiro the mortification.

“Yeah, it’s been like that this morning,” Keith replied. He sat down opposite Shiro at the table, and Shiro hastily slid the paperback across the table and into his lap to get rid of it so Keith couldn’t see the cover.

“So, got Astrophysics homework?” Shiro asked, recovering quickly. Keith nodded, and he pulled out his books and spread them out on the table. “Doesn’t look like much. We’ll breeze through this easy.”

 

They started in on the homework, luckily something Keith had learned intuitively over his time with Voltron, and Shiro seemed impressed when Keith got through it faster than usual. Whenever he would get a question right on his own, Shiro would grin and clap him on the back, or he would touch his shoulder gently and give him quiet words of encouragement, and either way it turned Keith into a red, wobbly mess. How Shiro didn’t seem to realize what he was doing baffled Keith, even more so on a second pass through this day.

When Keith finished, he closed the book and looked up, met at the top of his gaze with a small, warm smile from Shiro. It had the same flavor as a critical blow to Keith’s structural integrity.

“You’re really improving, Keith; I’m proud.” Shiro said, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms behind his head.

“Well, I had a good teacher.” Keith wasn’t totally lying, either - Shiro was one of the reasons these things came more intuitively now, even if this Shiro wasn’t involved in it. Shiro smiled good-naturedly now, almost bashful, but Keith was sure he hadn’t meant it like that.

 

The longer this went on, the more Keith had the nagging feeling that this was what he was supposed to be doing. He couldn’t place his finger on what about this situation was what was right, though. He highly doubted it was getting a better grade in Astrophysics.

 

“This was…reassuring. I was a little worried you’d have trouble when I was gone, but looks like I had nothing to worry about, huh?” Shiro said. Those words felt like the proverbial sucker punch to the gut. Shiro’s face fell, sensing Keith’s lack of amusement.

“Hey, look, buddy - we’ve talked about this. It won’t really be long, and I’m sure you won’t even notice I’m not there. I’ve worked out the comm schedule with the Holts, so I can call the Garrison every Wednesday, so I’ll still be here if you need me, too.” Shiro tried to sound reassuring, but Keith just felt babied. He knew more about how this mission would end than Shiro ever could. It wasn’t that simple.

“Shiro, you don’t understand! It’s not going to be like you think it is, whatever that is, and I don’t want to-“ Keith’s voice rose as he started speaking without thinking.

“Let’s take this somewhere private, first.” Shiro paraded Keith out of the library before they got more stares than they were already collecting. Keith surprised himself when he didn’t protest at being carted down the hallway, and Shiro seemed equally as surprised that he didn’t have to clamp a hand over his mouth.

Shiro took the two of them to his quarters. Keith had been in here a few times before this, but it still felt unfamiliar to him. Shiro’s room in the Castle was organized chaos, but this was uncomfortably neat. Keith felt like just walking on the carpet would somehow throw the whole vibe of the room off balance.

 

Shiro pulled a chair over from his desk and sat in it backwards, and he gestured for Keith to sit in the other one opposite him. Keith slid into it, avoiding Shiro’s eyes.

“Okay. What was that you were saying earlier?” Shiro asked, careful and slow as if he was avoiding provoking a wild animal. Now that he was on the spot, the words just wouldn’t come forth. “Take your time.”

Keith sighed. Shiro was too nice for his own good in this time. (He was too nice for his own good in any time.)

 

“It’s going to sound like I’m just saying this because I don’t want you to leave - which is true - but you really shouldn’t go to Kerberos. I can’t tell you exactly what’s going to happen, but I just know that it’s going to end terribly, for you especially. Before you say it, I know I must sound nuts or something, and I can’t stop you from going, but…” Keith couldn’t finish that sentence. He felt Shiro’s hand - his flesh right hand - settle on his left shoulder.

“What do you mean ‘end terribly’?” Shiro asked, his voice even quieter than before. Keith cringed.

“I…I can’t tell you. I wish I could, but it’s too risky. I don’t know what would happen if you knew ahead of time,” Keith replied. He cringed again at how his voice shook.

“Ahead of time? How…how do you know, then?”

“I can’t tell you that, either.”

 

Shiro was silent. His hand stayed on Keith’s shoulder, and even though anxiety thrummed in his blood even more than it had that morning, he still had enough ‘ _middle schooler with a crush_ ’ in him to blush at the prolonged contact.

“I have a feeling you already understand that I can’t fully back this since I don’t have any details, but I…I trust you, Keith,” Shiro started. Keith’s eyes shot up to meet Shiro’s, his mouth hanging open ever so slightly. “But - and that’s a big but - I’m afraid I’m still going to ahead with the mission anyway.” Keith opened his mouth wider to protest, the anxiety that faded for a moment coming back full force, but Shiro waved his free hand.

“I’m honestly pretty floored that you told me even though you knew on some level that it wouldn’t change anything, I’m sure, but I have to go through with this. It’s…personal.” Shiro was the one to avoid Keith’s eyes this time. “I’ll make sure to be extra careful, though, now that I know to expect the worst. And hey, it’s going to take a lot to keep me down, right?” He tried for a laugh.

 

Keith couldn’t help the way his lip trembled and his hands shook. This was his nightmare, wasn’t it? He had the opportunity to halt the future’s original course and save Shiro, but it would still happen anyway because Shiro was too headstrong and ambitious and optimistic for him to stop. It was clear to him now that he wasn’t ever meant to change the future, not like this, and that whatever was going on now was just a sick joke from whatever Big Man in the Sky that was toying with the universe for fun.

“Look, Keith, there’s something I’ve been meaning-“ Shiro started, but the bell for class change rang. “Never mind. It can wait, so you go to class, okay? Try not to worry about me so much for now.”

Keith nodded, even if he didn’t believe any of that, and stood up. Shiro stood up with him. He directed Keith out of the room and out to the hallway, stopping to give Keith a small smile before the other had to leave.

—

Keith spent the rest of the afternoon wondering about what Shiro could possibly have meant to tell him, and he came up blank on every turn. He was left with his one guilty desire sitting in the pit of his stomach, but he knew that would never happen, so he threw it out completely every time it surfaced to the top of his mind. Unfortunately, that was quite often.

Keith swore he felt something hit the back of his head partway through Aeronautical Theory. He didn’t turn around, but he heard some very familiar sounding snickering and decided that it wasn’t worth giving the perpetrator the satisfaction.

He did hear some equally as familiar sounding worrying and chiding right after, and that made him smile. On the way out of the class, Hunk sent him an apologetic glance like he was the mother of a rambunctious child. Keith, unable to hide his grin, shrugged back.

 

Now that he was finished with all of his classes for the day, Keith was left with another void in his schedule to fill. He struggled to remember what he used to do in his free time. He had homework, but he wasn’t particularly worried about the night’s load. What else did he do, read? Work out? Eat?

Keith was certain that if he tried to focus on a book, he would fail miserably, getting only twenty pages into whatever book before he got too jittery with unrelated thoughts to focus. Working out usually meant seeing Shiro, which he didn’t think he was ready for yet. That left eating. He was pretty hungry, and it was getting close to dinner, so what the hell. He set off for the mess.

It was a little early for most cadets and officers to seek out food, and dinner was just being set out in the line. Keith was lucky; tonight’s dinner looked pretty basic and unfuck-upable. He picked up a tray and sat down at one of the many empty tables.

 

As he chewed the only slightly overcooked spaghetti in front of him, Keith considered his next plan of action. His characteristically impulsive decision to burst headlong into an attempt to dissuade Shiro from going on the Kerberos mission failed spectacularly, as expected. Yet his gut was still telling him that relying on impulse was the best thing he could do in this situation.

Well, if he was relying on impulse, then what was he doing trying to come up with a ‘plan of action’? That was the exact opposite of his strong suit. The only reason he even thought in terms of plans was because Allura and Shiro had drilled that habit into his brain after nearly a year of near-death experiences caused by Keith’s penchant for recklessness.

Allura wasn’t here, and Shiro seemed to be the center of his problem, though, so Keith didn’t think their advice would apply to much here. That was how these things worked, right?

 

God, Shiro. Just thinking about him was enough to throw Keith off balance, and that wasn’t a new development. Being back at the Garrison brought all of his ‘ _baby’s first truly soul-destroying crush_ ’ feelings to the surface at alarming speeds, slapping him across the face every time he didn’t think about them for a twenty minute interval. How he survived with them in the first place he would never know.

They went through periods of dimming and intensifying after Shiro left for Kerberos, and after the broadcasts displaying the words ‘ _pilot error_ ’ made themselves inescapable, Keith up and left the Garrison to distance himself. Of course, that didn’t work as he expected it to, and his feelings only grew more drawn out and solemn. He learned to live with the slow burn at his chest, to some extent; when Shiro came back, though, Keith felt like he was set on fire again.

The fire turned down quick enough, as there were more important things to worry about, but it was a fundamentally different flame from the one that started the whole thing back when Keith was an eighteen year-old, lonely Garrison freshman. He was - mentally - twenty. Therefore, he should have grown out of this by now.

Evidently, he hadn’t done what he should have. Funny how it worked like that. Regardless of Keith’s age, seeing Shiro in his element, undamaged and hopeful, made his heart flutter and his palms sweat. Hell, Shiro in general did that to him, but this was more potent. Rose-tinted and perfect, yet bittersweet - or in other words, too tempting.

 

The rising din in the cafeteria brought Keith out of his reverie. Then he realized how sappy his thoughts had turned and grimaced at himself. His spaghetti had also gone cold in his distraction, so he shoved as much as he physically could stand into his mouth and put the rest on the recycling rack.

The clock on the wall read 6:20. He should be going to sleep around twelve if he wanted to wake up tomorrow and not feel like death, so now he had to figure out what to do for the next six hours, and more brooding was out of the question.

Shiro usually didn’t start working out until at least seven, so he had some time to go down to the High End gym and get in some time-killing training.

 

When Keith stopped by his dorm first to get his workout gear, his roommate was out at dinner, so he managed to avoid him again. Even if he did run into him, Keith had forgotten his name by now and wouldn’t know what to say to him in the first place, so he took that as a sign he was on the right track.

The gym was empty, too, which was another blessing. Keith changed in the locker room quickly - he remembered that they smelled absolutely rank after he already entered - and started out on the treadmill to warm up.

Even though his mind was from the future, his body was still a product of the past, and it functioned as such. Keith’s brain expected more of his muscles after months and months of rigorous training. When they started failing to deliver after twenty minutes straight of running at top speed on relatively high elevation, he shouldn’t have been surprised, but he still managed to feel the shock jolt up his spine when he slipped and fell off the machine.

 

The vigorous warm up already set Keith back in the exhaustion department, so he switched over to weights to conserve his stamina. Or at least that’s what he was intending to do, but he quickly discovered that he couldn’t just blast through fifty reps with the sixty pound dumbbells like he could with the Altean equivalent just yesterday.

Keith swiveled his shoulder in the joint, grimacing at the creaking in his back muscles and the pain sparking across his entire right side. Maybe working out wasn’t the best idea after all.

He was determined to not go back and attempt his homework, though, so Keith sat down on one of the benches lining the room and took a long drink of water. His bangs were hanging in his eyes, greasy and limp, so he pushed them back and put as much hair as he could manage up in a tiny ponytail at the base of his skull.

 

After sitting out for fifteen minutes to catch his breath and rest a moment, Keith dove back into the game. The punching bag was already set up by someone who was training earlier, and they never bothered to put it away, so Keith took advantage of that. It was no Gladiator, but it was something.

The bag was familiar to his tired body, so when he started in on it, the sensation was a lot less strenuous than his attempt at weight lifting. Keith cycled through all of the moves he remembered and some he didn’t, courtesy of his muscle memory, and he didn’t even realize how late it had gotten until the door opened and the person who entered let out a long, low whistle.

 

Keith stopped his punches and turned around, and Shiro approached him with a towel and water bottle. Keith took the towel and put it around his neck and chugged the bottle, to which Shiro chuckled.

“Geez, don’t hurt yourself,” he quipped, crossing his arms and leaning up against the wall next to the bag. “You were going really hard at it - harder than usual.”

“Nothin’ better to do, I guess,” Keith replied, putting down the already half empty bottle and wiping his face with the corner of the towel. “What time is it?”

“Half past seven. How long you been in here?”

“Since about six thirty.” Shiro’s eyes widened.

“On the bag for that long?” Both of Keith’s eyebrows raised and flattened immediately.

“Of course not; I warmed up on the treadmill and did some weights for a bit. I’ve only been on the bag for about…thirty minutes.” Keith reasoned. Shiro spat out some of the water he was drinking.

“‘ _Only?!_ ’ Dude, what’s gotten into you? I could see you finishing after thirty minutes, collapsing on the floor, maybe, but not going strong!” Shiro shouted, incredulous. Keith started laughing so hard his stomach hurt at how riled up Shiro got, an unusual sight, especially about something this pedestrian.

“What are you laughing at? Me?” Shiro asked, putting on an angry persona, but the way his voice broke into a laugh at the end gave him away.

“Sure,” Keith replied, wiping a tear from the corner of his left eye.

 

They both settled down and the atmosphere mellowed out. Keith cast a sidelong glance in Shiro’s direction, and he flushed when he noticed that Shiro was doing the same to him. He flicked his eyes to the other side of the room, but Shiro walked over into his line of sight.

“You got enough energy for a spar?” Shiro asked, stretching out his shoulders and elbows. Keith hesitated, but he nodded. Because his body wasn’t as strong as it was in the future, that meant Shiro’s wasn’t as strong, too. Even though he definitely could pound Keith’s measly ass through the floor if he wanted to, Keith liked to hope he still had a shot.

 

Shiro grabbed the tape from his bag on the other side of the room, wrapped his knuckles, and then tossed the roll to Keith before he stepped in the ring. Keith followed suit and threw the roll back in the general direction of Shiro’s stuff. Shiro was already in the ring when Keith pulled the cords over his head, and after a quick breathing exercise to prepare himself, they were going at it.

Good thing was, even if Keith’s body was a little slower and less powerful, he still had his natural agility on his side. Shiro wasn’t half as strong as Keith was used to, and his stance was not half as intimidating, but he still used a lot of the same basic moves. The only ones he didn’t use were the particularly vicious ones that he learned as The Champion, which was a plus, and he didn’t rely on his right arm as much.

Keith willed his body to work with him as he ducked under a high punch aimed towards his face, and he rolled to the side after Shiro took advantage of that position with a kick aimed at Keith’s head. Shooting up, Keith went in for the low kick and put Shiro off balance for a moment, but by the time he was standing up again, Shiro had regained it and was coming back swinging.

 

They went on like this for what felt like forever to Keith, switching between Keith throwing Shiro off balance and Shiro forcing Keith to put himself in uncomfortable stances to avoid his blows. Shiro always did figure out ways to pit Keith’s agility against him. His fatal flaw in this matchup, though, was that he was expecting Keith to have the same fighting knowledge as the lightweight eighteen year old his body was, not the knowledge of a twenty year old defender of the universe.

Keith had a hard time maneuvering his considerably less flexible body, but when he got in a groove with it, he started taking charge of the fight. Shiro noticed this surge in confidence and started going on the defensive, but Keith knew his defense tactics too well. He protected his chest too much, leaving his face and legs wide open to a well-placed uppercut or roundhouse if Keith could get the proper momentum first.

 

Feinting to the right, Keith goaded Shiro into leaning most of his body weight into his dominant side, leaving his non-dominant side wide open. Just as Shiro went in for a jab at Keith from the right, Keith opened up a kick to his left ankle, and he pushed Shiro to the ground after he stumbled to catch his balance.

Keith went down with Shiro, and they both fell to the ground, Keith hovering over the other man and panting heavily. Shiro’s chest was rising and falling so heavily that if Keith just leaned down another inch, their chests would be making contact.

Neither man moved from his position. Their eyes met in the middle, and Keith couldn’t break the eye contact even if he wanted to. He was locked in place, and a magnetism was drawing him closer, sweat dripping off his forehead and onto Shiro’s.

Keith’s heart beat faster in his chest than the whole time they were sparring, and he was afraid it was going to burst out. Shiro’s eyes fluttered closed as he breathed. There were only a matter of centimeters between their faces now…

 

Keith sat up, unable to take this any longer. He maneuvered himself off of Shiro and onto his feet, ignoring the pull in his gut to just go for it already. Out of the corner of his eye, Keith watched Shiro stand up, and maybe he was just imagining things how he wanted them to go, but Shiro almost seemed…disappointed?

“I underestimated you. Where’d you learn to fight like that all of a sudden?” Shiro asked, still breathless. Keith tossed him a towel as he dabbed himself down with one of his own.

“I had a good teacher,” Keith said, shooting Shiro a significant look, and Shiro returned it.

 

Even after he wiped his face of sweat and took a long drink from his water bottle, Shiro’s entire face and chest were still flushed. That was understandable, but Keith noticed how his ears were also the same striking pink. His eyebrows furrowed - couldn’t be.

Shiro caught him staring and smirked.

“What, like what you see?” he joked, gesturing to his completely sweated-through compression shirt. Keith’s mouth started moving without the consent of his brain.

“Oh yeah, big boy,” he purred, punching Shiro in the arm. Shiro’s face went up in a blaze, darker than any exercise blush, and Keith sucked in a breath when he realized what he just said. That was definitely a line, and he crossed it.

Shiro, the beautiful soul he was, laughed good-naturedly a few beats too late and shifted topics to Keith’s schoolwork. Keith let the breath out all at once when Shiro wasn’t looking.

 

They chatted away for another stretch of time, most of it being Shiro trying to make small talk with Keith and Keith being terrible at responding because he couldn’t remember school-related things for the life of him. Eventually conversation shifted towards the Kerberos mission, a topic neither of them particularly wanted to talk about, so they dropped off talking altogether pretty quickly after that.

“Well, you have class tomorrow, and I have prep I have to do at Mission Control pretty early in the morning. I’ll be around later if you really need me, but I kind of doubt you will, honestly,” Shiro said, standing up and unwrapping his hands.

“Of course I’ll need you,” Keith grumbled under his breath. Shiro turned around, pausing mid-wrap.

“What?”

“…Nothing.”

 

Shiro resumed unwrapping his hands like it was nothing, and after he finished that, he started collecting his other things. Keith tossed his tape into Shiro’s bag just as he finished. Shiro hiked the bag up on his shoulder and turned to face Keith one last time.

“If we don’t see each other tomorrow before seven, come to my dorm. I’ll be there by then.”

Shiro sent Keith a sharp salute, and he was gone. Keith put his face in his hands, sunk into the bench, and sighed.

—

It was 7:34 PM on April 3rd, 2063. Keith was standing outside of Shiro’s door, and he couldn’t believe a lot of things.

 

First of all, he was still surprised he managed to make it through all of his homework without falling asleep. Not only was he mentally, emotionally, and physically fried, schoolwork seemed a million times more dry after he actually got to experience deep space up close. Just thinking about traveling in any of the rust buckets Earth could produce was enough to put him to sleep on principle. The only reason he bothered doing his homework was to save his future (past?) self the trouble if he decided to stay in the Garrison in this version of the timeline, assuming he made any significant changes.

Then there was the fact that he woke up at the Garrison again in the morning, right on time with his alarm. He half expected to wake up back on the Castle again as if the past twenty four hours never happened and nothing about the past changed because he never time traveled, but clearly that was not the case. The vertigo from the day before returned as he got ready for class again and didn’t leave until about lunch time.

To add to the list, Lance seemed to have mellowed out a bit today. Keith had a feeling it had something to with Hunk, because Hunk shot him a smile and a thumbs up when the two of them sat down in Aeronautics. Keith was already a little suspicious when Lance generally left him alone in Astrophysics. His speculation was confirmed when Hunk actually approached him at the end of class and said something about ‘ _taming the chihuahua_.’ Keith hated to admit that he actually laughed at that. Scared the shit out of Lance, too.

 

Now, the icing on the cake, Keith couldn’t believe he was standing outside of Shiro’s quarters, waiting for the man himself to come to the door. He had already knocked a minute ago, and Shiro called from inside about ‘ _getting ready_ ’ and ‘ _waiting just a couple minutes_.’ Keith couldn’t possibly imagine what he was setting up in there since it was just a casual meet-up between friends after Shiro was leaving for nine months (or so he believed, anyway), so when he heard banging around and a yell from inside the room, he got worried.

“You okay in there?” Keith called through the door.

“Just peachy!” Shiro shouted back, his voice muffled. Keith’s eyebrows locked together and his lips pursed. This situation definitely didn’t happen before; he would have remembered this.

 

Finally the door opened, and Shiro stood there, and Keith’s breath quickened. Shiro looked… _sharp_. He always looked good, but he looked downright gorgeous right now. Keith looked Shiro up and down, and each pass left him with the bewildering notion that Shiro must have somehow found Keith’s type list or something, because he was hitting as many of his turn-ons as he possibly could.

His hair had some gel in it, adding volume, and Keith got the overwhelming urge to stick his fingers in it. (He didn’t, of course.) Shiro also went to town on the eye make-up more than usual. While Keith wouldn’t hesitate to admit that he did like a little make-up on a guy, he never thought he’d be this attracted to winged eyeliner and eyeshadow.

Keith’s breath all but hitched at the deep plum turtleneck and skinny jeans hugging Shiro’s cut frame. Glancing at his own shitty t-shirt and leather pants, Keith felt terribly underdressed, but he did catch Shiro staring at his pants, which he guessed was a plus.

Wait, Shiro was staring at his pants?

 

“C-Come in,” Shiro stuttered, and Keith’s head was spinning. Okay, now he was convinced he shifted universes when he woke up this time, because Takashi Shirogane did _not_ stutter.

Keith walked into the room. It looked significantly more clean than it did yesterday, a shock at first, but Keith spied a few folders sticking out from under Shiro’s bed. At least that was still the same.

“So, uh, what’s up?” Keith asked, shoving his hands in his pockets. Shiro, having just closed the door, stiffened. He slowly turned around to face Keith with a deer-in-the-headlights look, and after an eternity of uncomfortable eye contact, he finally broke with a sigh.

 

“I was going to have some elaborate thing set up, but it started going a little hairy before you got here, and honestly it was just me putting off getting the meat of this over with, so I might as well tell you straight. But I dunno; I feel like that’s not really fair to you, yet at the same time…” Shiro rambled on and on about something - something Keith had sinking feeling about.

It didn’t look like Shiro was going to shut up any time soon, and it also looked like he wasn’t going to get to the point, either. It was up to Keith. Praying he read the situation right, Keith took one step closer to Shiro, and then another, and then another; at some point Shiro’s voice trailed off until he stopped speaking altogether. They were toe to toe.

“What is it?” Shiro breathed. With Shiro’s eyes glittering and wide and Keith’s heart going one thousand beats a minute, everything fell into place. Keith sucked in a breath.

“Something I should have done two years ago,” Keith whispered back. Shiro’s eyebrows dipped in confusion.

“Two? We’ve only known each other for one.”

“You’ll understand in two years.”

Keith cut Shiro off before he protested by firmly pressing their lips together. Time seemed to stop for the first few moments, Keith’s eyes squinting shut on contact, and their noses bumped together. Shiro wasn’t moving. Becoming painfully aware of every second ticking by, Keith contemplated pulling back, but then Shiro started reciprocating, and time sped up again.

Shiro’s lips slid against Keith’s own fervently, and Keith all but squeaked. He felt Shiro grin against him - that _fucker_ \- and backpedaled until his back hit the wall. Then Shiro’s hands were all over his head, in his hair and on his neck and jaw, driving him wild, and Keith could have cried if all the fluid in his body wasn’t going to either Shiro’s mouth or his groin.

Grabbing desperately at the back of his Shiro’s head, Keith opened his mouth into the kiss, and Shiro slowly, gently flicked his tongue out of his mouth and into Keith’s. With an embarrassingly loud groan, Keith pushed back, and suddenly everything started going too fast.

 

They broke apart after that, Keith conflicted over the loss of contact, and both panted heavily. A trail of spit still connected their mouths, but it snapped when Shiro’s lips turned up into a three hundred watt smile.

“I… _wow_.” Shiro said. Keith couldn’t help but laugh at that, and Shiro laughed along with him, pulling Keith into a hug. Shiro’s head rested on Keith’s shoulder, his nose brushing against the crook of it, and Keith gasped mid-laugh when Shiro nuzzled into the junction.

“You don’t know how long I’ve been conflicted over doing that,” Shiro mumbled into Keith’s neck. “After we talked yesterday in my room, I decided I was finally going to say something today - seeing you in the gym cemented that - and I had a whole date planned, but you just walked in here and did it like it was nothing.”

Keith was left speechless. He was… _that_ interested? That couldn’t be a side-effect of the changes he’s made so far in the timeline, either, because he sounded like he was pining just as much as Keith was.

 

“How long…?” Keith asked, his voice cracking halfway through. Shiro left the crook of Keith’s neck to look him in the eyes. He smiled again, but it had a different quality to it. Reminiscent. Sheepish.

“Since the first time we sparred? Maybe? It was gradual.” Shiro rubbed the back of his neck, avoiding Keith’s eyes. “Yourself?”

“First time I saw you.” Keith answered automatically; he didn’t even need to think about it. Shiro flushed deeply and pulled at his ear with a little indignant noise, and Keith’s heart swelled three times.

“Suave, too. Should have done this sooner,” Shiro muttered mostly to himself, Keith assumed. “You, uh, want to continue? On the bed?”

A spark of heat shot through Keith, and he nodded vigorously. Shiro chuckled again and led Keith to his bed at the small of his back, gently sitting him down when they got there.

 

They regarded each other for a few seconds, Keith feeling increasingly like the whole middle school crush situation was coming back to haunt him, but Shiro was the one to take the initiative this time. He leaned in and cupped Keith’s jaw with his right hand and used his left to circle around to Keith’s back. He ducked his head once, hair falling in his face, and then leaned in to close the distance.

Their second kiss was less visceral than the last, starting off slow and sweet and actually staying that way for longer. With Shiro at the helm, things were gentler and practiced, which made up for both of their obvious inexperience. But Keith could sense Shiro’s restraint overtaking him. Throwing caution to the wind, Keith decided he was determined to be the one to take it up a notch.

He separated them for a moment. Shiro parted reluctantly and his eyes flicked open immediately as if he was burned. Their foreheads were still close enough to touch.

 

“What’s wrong?” Shiro asked, his eyebrows pinching in the middle.

At that moment, Keith felt the reality of the situation completely weigh down on his shoulders, Shiro’s tastefully glittery eyes staring back at him with immeasurably deep care and concern, and it was solid and tangible and terrifying. Afraid it was evident on his face, Keith allowed a grin to slip on. It was probably a little too manic to be comforting, but it was genuine, and that’s all that mattered to him.

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.” Keith started leaning in again, but to his surprise, it was Shiro who hesitated this time.

 

“Wait. Before we…get started again, I have something I need to say.”

Keith’s breath quickened, and not in the heart-fluttery-head-over-heels sort of way. Shiro sensed that, took the hand placed on Keith’s back, and held Keith’s free hand with it.

“I hate to bring this up now since I’m sure it’s the last thing either of us want to think about right now, but I am going to be gone for quite some time after this, and I don’t think it’d be fair to you to get something going and then have me up and leave right after - at least not without talking about it beforehand.” Shiro’s grip on Keith’s hand tightened. “Based on the momentum we have right now, this could go a _certain direction_ , and while I’m not opposed to continuing, if you want to stop, I need to hear it.”

Keith wasn’t one to sit back and analyze a situation before acting; that was only something he did when he knew that someone else would be on his ass for nearly killing them if he didn’t. So when he was at a crossroads, the first thought that came to mind was usually his best bet, and this crossroads were no different than any other.

_He’ll be back. That won’t change. He will come back to me, hell or high water, and that’s a fact of any universe; I can feel it._

 

“Let’s keep going. If you’re into it, of course,” Keith amended, cursing himself for ruining his stalwartness with a fumble right at the end. The pinch between Shiro’s eyebrows only got deeper.

“Are you sure? Please don’t think you should do anything because I want it, because you’re more important to me here. Answer me completely honestly; are you totally sure?”

Keith felt tears welling up in his eyes and blinked them away as fast as he could. God damn Shiro and his gentleness and understanding and caring and _fuck_ -

“Wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it, so just shut up and kiss me.”

 

This time Shiro was on him with no hint of the tentativeness of just a few moments before. He was all desperation and raw passion, and it left Keith breathless. Quite literally, actually, because he had to separate them to breathe before jumping back in after only a few moments. Shiro captured his lips mid-breath and started kissing him opened-mouthed, eliciting a loud gasp on Keith’s part.

They were both still inexperienced as hell, and their teeth clacked together a few times, but Keith couldn’t even find the capacity to care once Shiro figured out how to nibble on his bottom lip in just the right way. Feeling he was losing control, Keith took the initiative to push against Shiro’s open lips with his tongue experimentally, and Shiro straight up moaned directly into him. Keith swore he short circuited at the sound alone.

After he regained his composure to some extent, Keith smirked and licked again, using some of Shiro’s own moves from earlier against him, and in retaliation, Shiro picked him up by the hips and set Keith down in his lap. Shiro’s hands were immediately on Keith’s face again, and Keith realized how stationary his own hands were.

 

Keith decided it was a better time than any to take it up a notch again. While Shiro was busy moving his lips away from Keith’s and down to his jaw and neck, Keith put his hands up the back of Shiro’s turtleneck and grabbed onto the burning hot flesh underneath. Shiro groaned against Keith’s earlobe, which was accidental payback enough, eliciting a whine at the hot air on the sensitive skin there.

“You like that?” Shiro asked, his voice lower and huskier than anything Keith’s wildest dreams could ever conjure up. Keith could only nod. Shiro took advantage of this information and increased his assault on Keith’s earlobe, biting down on it tentatively, and Keith couldn’t stop the groan rising in his chest from escaping.

“Get the turtleneck off,” Keith wheezed, pulling ineffectually at the thick plum fabric. He wasn’t thinking straight enough to get it off by himself, and Shiro’s arms were positioned in such a way that he couldn’t even if he was thinking properly.

“That an order, cadet?” Shiro moved so he was eye level with Keith, cocking an eyebrow. Keith hardened his gaze, and Shiro’s bravado faltered for a moment into a little whine; that was new.

 

Shiro immediately took to getting the turtleneck off. Keith sat back and watched him, brushing off the guilt crawling underneath his skin at how much he was ogling the man before him, but it was really hard not to when Shiro was as well toned as he was. When the full garment was finally off, Shiro tossed it onto the floor and got to work on taking Keith’s own shirt off.

Now that the turtleneck was off, Keith moved his attention to the juncture between Shiro’s neck and shoulder. It was all ready for the taking, so he leaned in and started out with simple kisses, but after Shiro responded so well to it, he started in on his true mission of giving Shiro a few wild-looking hickeys.

“Hey, watch where you put those,” Shiro said between pants. “I have to go up to Mission Control tomorrow morning.”

“That’s the aim,” Keith rumbled into Shiro’s shoulder, and the other man shivered. “I’ll try to be careful, but no promises.” Keith couldn’t help the smirk that slid its way onto his face.

“You little shit,” Shiro groaned, grabbing at Keith’s hair as he absorbed the sensation.

 

Keith took that opportunity to stop sucking and put pressure on Shiro’s chest, urging him to lay down. Shiro obliged, and Keith was left sitting on top of his thighs, observing Shiro from the top down.

Shiro’s lips were kiss-bruised and beautiful, his entire face already teetering on the edge of blissed-out, and his eye make-up was still perfectly in tact. Keith’s eyes roved down to the three hickeys he left across Shiro’s collarbone and didn’t bother suppressing a smile. As his eyes continued southward, he realized that Shiro was already… _incredibly_ hard.

Then Keith realized he was _also_ incredibly hard. It shouldn’t have been as surprising as it was, but Keith still had the decency to gasp a little when he noticed the especially tight bulge in his leather pants.

Apparently Shiro had noticed it, too, because the only world Keith could use to describe the look on his face as he stared at Keith’s crotch was _hungry_.

 

“Those stupid pants,” Shiro whined, his head falling back onto the bed and exposing his neck. “The second you knocked on the door, I knew I was screwed because of those pants.”

“Want me to take ‘em off, then?” Keith asked before he even realized his mouth opened. Shiro full out groaned this time, covering his eyes with his left hand, and his head lolled to the side on his pillow. “Fuck, did I really just say that?”

“Yes, you did, and I’m going to be really disappointed if you take it back,” Shiro replied. His entire chest flushed after he said it, and he didn’t move from his bashful position, but Keith took that as an invitation plain and simple. He leaned down so he was level with Shiro’s neck, nibbled on the juncture, and whispered into it:

“No one said I was taking it back.”

 

While Shiro was busy recovering from that, Keith backed up and began unbuttoning his pants. It took a moment, and he had to half stand on the bed to finish getting them off, but when he finally got them off, he threw them on the floor with the shirts. Now that he was only in his boxers adorned with a very prominent stain on the front, Keith felt a wave of self-consciousness rush over him, but when Shiro moved his hand off of his eyes and looked at it him with an indescribably affectionate look in his eyes, the insecurity was gone in an instant.

Shiro motioned for Keith to get off of him again so he could take his own pants off, and Keith swallowed as Shiro shimmied out of the skinny jeans agonizingly slowly. When he finally kicked them off onto the floor, Shiro turned to face Keith, and they looked each other up and down. Some magnetic force kicked in, and they were gravitating towards each other again, and then they were making out all over again.

Keith practically shoved his tongue into Shiro’s mouth, and Shiro didn’t protest; he responded in kind, turning the exchange into less of a kiss and more of an intense licking contest that Keith was too horny to be bothered by.

 

Shiro took to rubbing Keith’s chest. He fixated on Keith’s nipples and pinched experimentally, grinning into the kiss when Keith moaned in response. Keith did the same for Shiro and got an equally enthusiastic reaction, but instead of just leaving it there, he broke apart the kiss and moved to mouth at Shiro’s left nipple.

Shiro squirmed against him and fell back against the bed, Keith’s mouth going down with him, and he ran both his arms up and down Keith’s shoulders and back. Keith moved off of the nipple and started kissing down the length of Shiro’s chest and stomach.

When he reached Shiro’s navel, Keith couldn’t hide the way his lips twitched nervously against the flesh. Before long he made contact with the band of Shiro’s briefs. He flicked his eyes up to meet Shiro’s, a question, and Shiro nodded fervently in response.

 

Pulling the band down slowly, Keith unveiled Shiro’s twitching dick, and his heart stopped and was shocked back into starting all at once as it flicked to attention mere centimeters from his face.

“Okay, I’ve never done this before, so just a warning,” Keith announced with a shaking voice. Shiro’s breath hitched at the air brushing against his dick.

“I don’t care what you do,” Shiro whined, the words so choked that they were barely recognizable. “Anything you do at this point would be more than enough.” Keith could have fainted.

“Here goes nothing,” Keith mumbled, taking Shiro’s dick in hand and placing an experimental lick on the head. At the encouragement of Shiro’s increasingly loud and excited noises, Keith gained confidence and started lapping around the head and licking stripes up the bottom, but he didn’t dare put the whole thing in his mouth yet. He didn’t want to break his jaw on his first blowjob.

 

Keith continued on this track, getting more and more adventurous, but it was over pretty fast. After a particularly strong pump and swirl of his tongue, Shiro moaned something that almost sounded like the English language, and Keith got the memo. He positioned himself out of the line of fire, gave Shiro’s dick a couple more hearty strokes, and Shiro climaxed with a broken gasp of Keith’s name.

That was enough to nearly make Keith come himself, but he held it together as he helped Shiro come down from his orgasm with a peppering of neck kisses. Keith took the plunge and licked up the cum coating Shiro’s chest in ropes while he was at it while Shiro watched, and the look that Shiro gave him was heady and perfect, enough for Keith to store away in the corner of his mind reserved for things he would rather die than forget.

 

“Hold on, you still haven’t gotten off,” Shiro said, lazily pulling himself up into a sitting position after Keith finished cleaning up. “C’mon, get over here.” Keith couldn’t say no to that.

Keith slid up Shiro’s legs and onto his thighs again, and Shiro pushed down the waistband of his boxers just enough for his dick to fly free. Keith groaned at the release of pressure. Shiro took Keith in one hand and slowly began pumping his fist up and down, and just as Keith was adjusting to the sensation, something hot and wet closed over the tip.

Keith gasped as he looked down, met with Shiro’s taunting eyes and mouth closed over the head of his dick, and the gasp melted into a moan. This was payback, huh?

 

Grabbing his hands at Shiro’s hair, Keith got a small triumph at finally getting to touch it (it was just as satisfying as he imagined it would be), but that was shattered as Shiro actually started to move on his dick. His lips engulfed its girth and slid up and down the first half, his hands taking care of the back half.

Keith uttered some noise that was a combination of Shiro’s name and a string of choice profanity, but the original meaning got lost in his throat, rapidly closing up as he felt the inevitable heat pooling in his groin. Keith let his mouth hang open as he resisted the urge to fuck up directly into Shiro’s mouth.

“I-I…God. Soon. Coming. Shiro, fuck.” Keith managed to put together a few mangled words, but Shiro showed no sign of moving away. In fact, he beckoned Keith to make eye contact and wiggled his eyebrows as a taunt.

 

Keith came on the spot. It was earlier than he expected, but it was just as good - if not _better_ \- than he was anticipating, so overwhelming that he swore he saw galaxies swirling before his eyes. Shiro swallowed the whole load like a champ and continued sucking just a couple extra times to wrench the last few moans out of Keith that he could manage. Shiro pulled off and licked away the spit trail.

Keith dimly registered Shiro lying down and taking Keith with him, pulling both their underwear up and wrapping his arms around Keith’s body, and Keith curled into the heat radiating off of Shiro.

Shiro nuzzled into the crook of Keith’s neck, placing his chin there, and spooned up behind Keith completely. Keith hummed, craning his neck to make cheek-to-cheek contact, and chuckled when Shiro hummed back.

 

“You know what’s funny?” Shiro mumbled. Keith flipped out of the spoon to face Shiro. “I didn’t even know you were gay.”

Keith snorted, and then started laughing, and then the laughs were coming on fast and unstoppable, so hard he had to grab onto Shiro to ground him. Shiro started laughing too, just as loud; when they made eye contact, there were tears in the corners of Shiro’s eyes. Keith untangled one of his arms so he could wipe them away.

“I’m really going to miss you.”

“I am, too.”

 

Keith already felt sleep pulling at him, beckoning him under, and wrapped in Shiro’s arms, he let it take him.

—

When Keith woke up, he felt all fuzzy and warm, and a solid mass rested against his chest. His legs were tangled in someone else’s, and whoever they were, they were breathing deeply.

The memories of the previous night came flooding back to Keith, and he quirked a smile into what he assumed to be Shiro’s back. The skin under him stretched, and Shiro rolled over to meet him.

Keith’s eyelashes fluttered as he opened his eyes, and when they were fully open, he had to suppress the way his body jolted.

 

Shiro’s white forelock hung down in his sleep-coated face, his eyes still shut, and his long, pink scar lay puckered on his nose. He threw his prosthetic over Keith’s arm and held him close, tucking Keith’s face into his chest, and Keith took a deep breath. Shiro smelled like space dust, musk, and his own unique scent that settled Keith’s nerves on contact.

Tears pricked the corners of Keith’s eyes.

 

“Morning, sleepyhead,” Shiro purred into Keith’s neck, laying a couple kisses there. “You were really sleeping heavily. Have a good dream or something?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

**Author's Note:**

> and that was that!  
> couple notes:  
> \- i'm making this a series and will add more to it later as far as filling in gaps i left in on purpose, so look forward to that!  
> \- the date of the kerberos mission's launch in this (april 5th, 2063) is not only that date because it makes general sense, but also because its star trek first contact day and i'm a dork and couldn't resist
> 
> thank you so much for reading!! dont hesitate to leave a comment


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